I had to get a 6am bus on my own so I was walking up an empty street though it was light. A guy started to walk beside me and talk to me but in Spanish, I only know a little so I just did the smile and nod and kept walking, he continued to walk beside me and talk but I just continued to ignore him and walk faster. He then took my wrist and tried to pull me across the road, I managed to quickly lose his grip and then sprinted up the road.

On my way home yesterday walking through town (at 7pm, in daylight), a group of three middle aged, fat, balding men passed me and one of them decided to casually pinch my skirt, lift it and grab my skin. I immediately saw red, turned round and punched him in the bridge of his nose. This angered the other two, they got straight up in my face shouting “What did you do that for?” at me, I shouted back and one of them pushed me by my shoulder so hard that I fell into the road. I’m fine, but shaken.

I was suffering from sciatica and scheduled for spinal fusion surgery; in the meantime I was walking with a cane. A shop I loved downtown was closing and they were having going-out-of-business sale with a contest to earn points for prizes. I was on of the top contenders. One of the ways we could earn extra points was to carry a sign advertising the sale in front of the shop. So I signed up to do this, despite my pain.

Now, I am not a young girl. I was, then, in my later forties and a bit plump. It was summer, so I was wearing sandals. As I walked back and forth in front of the shop with my sign in one hand and my cane in the other, a young man of about 16 came up to me. He at first asked me if I wanted to buy a video game console. I said “No, but you can try up the street in the campus district. A lot of college students play video games” and continued my task. He walked away for a little bit and then came back and began to make remarks about my feet – how pretty they were, what kind of nail polish I was wearing, etc. I shrugged it off but he persisted. Then he began to try to touch my feet and offered to kiss them and suck on my toes. He actually bent down and tried to grab my feet, which nearly threw me off balance. I let go of the sign to catch myself and told him to leave me alone. He started to follow me, apologizing, but I went back into the shop early, willing to give up my prize to get away from him.

I told the shop owner what had happened, which naturally shocked them. They gave me my points anyway, but I went home and never returned to finish the contest. I felt violated. All he touched was my feet, but I still felt violated. Despite the heat, I wore socks and tennis shoes for a week before being willing to wear sandals in public again. I’ve been cat called and had passes made at me in my younger days, but this was the most bizarre and creepy thing that has ever happened to me. I still regret not calling to the police to at least give them a heads-up on this guy.

It was about 4 years ago now which would of made me 22. I was getting a tram back home during rush hour and felt something touching me from behind. I turned to see a man looking me straight in the eye and decided to move away from him. Moments later I feel it happening again but now the tram was so cramped I couldn’t move away. I turned my head and the same man had followed me and was groping me again. I didn’t know what to do as he smirked at me when I began to panic.

Hi so my name is Zach. I’m the oldest and only boy in my family. I have two younger sisters and ever since I could remember I was always taught to respect women and that it was my job as an older brother to protect my younger sisters. This has made me very protective of the people that I am close to. Because of this many of my female friends ask me to go with them places.
A few days ago one of my friends, who is an amateur model, asked me to go with her to future photoshoots because at the last one the photographer made her feel very uncomfortable and she was harassed on the bus ride there. Now every photoshoot she has I will go with her.
Last year at a Renaissance Fair another one of my female friends asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend so guys will stop hitting on her. Obviously I said yes and whenever a guy would bother her I would swoop in and say something like “hey babe, want a soda?” or hold her hand and the guy would walk away. Whenever a guy would stare at her I would put my arm around her. Later that day she gave me a huge hug and thanked me.
When I was 14 my sister and I were walking home from school when these two boys from her class started following us. They were shouting things at my sister like “damn girl what’s yo size?” and “why don’t you bring that fine ass over here?”. I warned them to fuck off or something bad will happen and they went down another street. They then cut us off at the next street, blocking us from going home. They continued to harass my sister and I warned them again to fuck off but one of the disgusting assholes grabbed my sister’s ass and needless to say I beat the everloving shit out of them. What pissed me off even more though was the fact that none of them thought they were doing anything wrong.
Honestly I could write a whole goddamn book about all the times women asked me to protect them from ‘men’. What really scares me though is what would happen to my sister and friends if I wasn’t there to protect them from these creeps. How far would it go? Would my sister have gotten raped? Would my friends have gotten assualted? I’m so scared and angry that women I care about and women everywhere deal with this bullshit everyday. I’m sorry men do this. I really am. We need to teach our children not to do this and it’s not ok.

I am harassed daily because I take a bus and a train to work which is in the downtown area of Chicago; all sorts of people wandering. I work for a cosmetic line which encourages individual style and creative appearance. Because I am heavily tattooed and dress like I’m going to a trendy gathering for work (complete opposite of how I dress not working) I am approached, stared at, cat called, insulted, chased and treated like a tear in a magazine or an object to touch.

Daily, I am feeling angry and frustrated and filled with hate. It interrupts my work sometimes because I am in the public’s view. I was once told to tattoo “stupid whore” on my forehead because I declined communication with an older man in his 50s. I’ve been called “bitch” because I confront men who stare at me like I am oblivious to their eyes. I’ve been insulted for ignoring when I walk to my train or bus. I’ve been chased and followed by men who think I’m “easy”. I’ve been grabbed and pulled like an object because of my completely covered tattooed arms and legs. Then they get angry with me because I snap back. Because this happens literally on a daily basis, I’ve grown to hate living in Chicago. I grew up in Texas and never had this heavy amount of street harassment. I am a human and I just want to walk peacefully.

I was 17 and was sitting alone on the Metro line coming from Grand Central station. A man sat next to me and I didn’t think much of it since it was a busy train, so I continued to look out the window and listen to my iPod. A little while into the train ride I felt that he was staring at me, I was instantly petrified and continued to stare out the window silently hoping he would stop. Then I noticed in the reflection of the window he was touching himself and smiling at me. I began to shake and panic, so a few stops later I worked up the courage to get up and tell a conductor, which was beyond embarrassing since I didn’t quite how to phrase what was happening. The conductor asked the guy to stop bothering me, and told him to move. I passed this man to get to my new seat and he gave me such a smug look, it was equally terrifying, and disgusting. I’m now 19, and still worry about it. Since this moment I have been extremely paranoid in crowds and hate traveling alone. It was so vile and disgusting, and I remember feeling guilty for some reason after I told the conductor! The rest of the ride home I played the situation over and over again, and for some reason tried to justify his actions. I know now that I did nothing wrong, I’m not guilty, and harassment has to stop.

I was at a sushi place down town with a friend and a group of people wanted to take pictures with us (relatively common in Stockholm). One of the older men (like 55y/o) grabbed my ass right when we took the pic. I grabbed his fingers, took his hand off of my butt and angrily “threw away” his hand whilst staring as angrily at him.

I’m a 16 year old girl. Once I was on an extremely crowded metro, there were so many people I could barely turn around. Now this creep behind me (like 45 y/o) is starting to lightly touch my ass, his hand just glides by like it was nothing. It was so lightly and I felt like I couldn’t say anything without looking crazy. Now this guy got closer to me and I could feel his breath on my neck and how his dick (through his pants) was slowly grinding me. I went off at the next stop, disgusted…